From here.
Reduxx:
Pro-Woman.
Pro-Child Safeguarding.
Anti-Bullsh*t.
Reduxx was launched in January 2022 with the intention of creating a truly pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding platform that could provide high-quality, accurate reporting and opinion on the issues impacting women.
We strive to change the way people view feminist media while giving a new generation of diverse female writers the space and protection they need to reclaim their narratives and advocacy.
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News:
Greek Football Player Receives 10-Month Suspended Jail Sentence for “Transphobic” Facebook Posts
Spanish Psychologists Targeted by Death, Bomb Threats Over Critique of Gender Ideology
Trans Teacher Placed on Indefinite Leave After Disturbing Videos Surface
Etc. Nothing but TERFs here, folks.
For those who didn’t click the link, here’s the article:
A Professor who criticised Prostasia had his research article on the activist organization erased after they allegedly bullied the publishing journal into deleting his work.
Dr. Alaric Naudé, a Professor focused on the social sciences and linguistics at Suwon University in South Korea, had his research on Prostasia removed from The British Journal of Sociology and History just 24 hours after it was first published on February 9.
When Dr. Naudé inquired with the Journal on the reason why, he was told Prostasia had contacted them and demanded its removal on the grounds that the group claimed it was defamatory.
The article, titled A Case Study via Sociolinguistic Analysis of [a] Covert Pro-Pedophilia Organization Registered as a Child Protection Charity, focused on how Prostasia claims to be for child protection but builds a narrative framing pedophiles as victims of “an oppressive social structure.”
In the work, Dr. Naudé interrogates Prostasia’s approach to so-called child safeguarding, and criticizes academics who don’t push back against their rhetoric. He also sources policies, quotes, and profiles directly from Prostasia’s own website to evidence his argument.
“I made an in-depth analysis of the claims made by these pseudo-child protection organisations and cross referenced their claims for validity against researchers who did not belong to the same ideological group,” Dr. Naudé explained to Reduxx, “What I found was that their claims had been debunked by respected researchers that stated the opposite of what Prostasia claimed.”
Dr. Naudé points to a study conducted by Finnish child safeguarding NGO Suojellaan Lapsia Ry, which found that pedophiles “being in contact with other users can exacerbate the problem. Users might justify each other’s behavior, thus perpetuating the cognitive distortion that child sexual abuse material use is acceptable.” He notes that Prostasia fully contradicts such findings, instead encouraging pedophiles to form social groups for the purposes of “support” and “destigmatization,” all while supporting the legalization of “artistic” child sexual abuse material and “fantasy outlets” for pedophiles.
“These ‘peer’ groups actually prevent people with pedophilic urges from getting help from a clinical psychologist,” Dr. Naudé says, continuing “Further, saying that pedophilia is innate sexuality actually makes it more difficult for pedophiles to direct their desires away from children. Prostasia is not helping.”
Dr. Naudé says he became interested in Prostasia while researching propaganda for a separate article he published in 2021 (Sociolinguistic Engineering of English Semantics as a tool for Population Indoctrination Subjugation and Control), and a subsequent book on linguistics.
“During my research, I went into how propagandists stifle dissent by using laws that are meant to protect people but twisting them. During that time, I discovered the groundwork that had been laid for a pedophilic movement within academia, one that would lay semi-dormant until numbers were to their advantage,” he says, noting that he began to look into child protection policies and became aware of groups “claiming to want to protect children but whose linguistic markers denoted that something else was their intention.”
Dr. Naudé tells Reduxx that he feels a movement sympathetic to pedophilia has become deeply entrenched in academia.
“So much so that many academics are now emboldened to either soften the tone toward pedophilia by “destigmatization” or otherwise openly saying that it is not immoral at all,” he mentions Michel Foucault as well as the recent blowout with Old Dominion instructor Allyn Walker as examples.
“The fake-it-till-you-make-it approach taken by Prostasia and others poses a serious danger to children and wider society once these ideas become mainstream. Stigma exists for a reason.” Dr. Naudé goes on to note that children do not have the cognitive ability to learn about kink, which Prostasia often promotes, or most sexual behavior.
“Teaching children about ‘sex-positivity’ is what everyone else calls grooming. If Prostasia is a child protection organisation, then I suppose an abattoir is an animal rights centre,” Dr. Naudé concludes, noting that “The longer these organizations exist, the more powerful they become and the more corrupt the academia that supports them becomes.”
Reduxx is a newly-launched, independent source of pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding news and commentary. We’re able to continue our work exposing predators, standing up for women, and reporting the truth thanks to the generous support of our readers.
Prostasia got his article taken down because they argued successfully for defamation. This “doctor” claims that Prostasia justifies the use of REAL CSAM (blatantly untrue), that stigma “exists for a reason” (fuck is that supposed to mean?!), that pedophiles should “direct their desires away from children” (which is FUCKING CONVERSION THERAPY DOC, DOESN’T FUCKING WORK, WE TRIED), etc. He accuses Prostasia of having “ulterior motives” and refers to teaching kids about sex positivity as “grooming”. Oh, I’m sorry, I thought sex positivity included teaching things like consent, safe sex, tolerance for homosexuality and shit like that. Guess we shouldn’t teach kids this stuff, according to you Doc.
Christ on a pogo stick, this man has no idea what the Hell he’s talking about. Every single world from his mouth either a twisting of the truth or a straight-up lie, which is precisely what he’s accusing US of! Can’t make this shit up! Fucking hilarious.
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This is exactly what I was thinking when reading this article. It seems little more than fear mongering.
What I want to know more on is this part:
Exactly how was this study conducted? Whatever the answer, I’d say that stigma is more likely to exacerbate the problem. Why? Because pedophiles will keep a low profile to avoid things like harassment and, if they feel like they have nothing to lose, may end up searching for actual CSAM.
“Normalizing pedophilia” doesn’t mean allowing CSA or CSAM. It means less stigma so that pedophiles can find support if they deem it necessary. You can’t stop people from having certain thoughts that you may find troublesome. Letting them entertain themselves is better than if they went to commit an actual offense.
It’s also important to remember that many CSA offenses are done by people who don’t even have pedophilic thoughts. Many of them do it because children are more vulnerable to abuse than adults.
Stigma doesn’t work and it’s been proven time and time again. If we want to lower the number of CSA cases and stop CSAM from being produced, we need to do as much as we can to support those who are more at risk to commit such offenses.
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The irony of Naude’s rhetoric is so… I’m at a loss for words.
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Okay, this ‘outlet’ is a goddamn joke.
The fact that any so-called academic, let alone someone with a PhD in an applied linguistics field who teaches at a University in South Korea, should be a mark against them and their reputation among educated and informed readers and would-be students.
I mean look at this!
Yeah - really selling me on the “Feminist News and Opinion”. I trust this article and its takes on feminism like I trust Candace Owens on matters regarding racial equality. This entire fucking publication is schlock bullshit with no other purpose than to regurgitate existing news pieces with a right-wing, secular-conservative rhetoric, and it surprises me not the slightest that Naude would contribute to this.
The TERF, anti-trans rhetoric is so nauseatingly pungent from just by glancing at the titles of these pages that it comes off as parody.
Absolutely none of these contributors should be taken seriously. The fact that they had to settle for a “.info” domain tells me everything I need to know about this shit.
This is amazing. This is the same type of rhetoric we’ve come to expect from the so-called “LGBA”.
I suspect that there’s some shady activity going on, something far more sinister.
@terminus Sorry for the ping, but how likely is it that these orgs are being bankrolled by conservative shadow-PACs to infiltrate LGBT and “leftist” oriented groups or communities in an effort to poison discourse in ways that are against their own interests?
I say this because we’ve seen campaign finance laws get overturned in recent years, making it far easier for political shitfuckery to occur without proper notice.
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The article, titled A Case Study via Sociolinguistic Analysis of [a] Covert Pro-Pedophilia Organization Registered as a Child Protection Charity
How did an article with such a biased title get published in what is apparently a peer-reviewed journal in the first place? Did none of the peers who reviewed this do a basic google search for Prostasia?
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Dr. Naudé points to a study conducted by Finnish child safeguarding NGO Suojellaan Lapsia Ry, which found that pedophiles “being in contact with other users can exacerbate the problem. Users might justify each other’s behavior, thus perpetuating the cognitive distortion that child sexual abuse material use is acceptable.”
This is the link that the article provides to the study: https://archive.ph/0HeGk
Here’s what it states:
Suojellaan Lapsia ry / Protect Children extends a warm thank you to the Commission for its invaluable work in the field of child protection. Moreover, Protect Children wants to kindly thank for the opportunity to provide feedback on this initiative. Protect Children is a non-governmental and not-for-profit organization based in Helsinki, Finland. We believe that to fully protect children from sexual violence, it is crucial to tackle the issue from all angles. Protect Children educates children on vital digital safety skills, conducts research on pressing issues, and establishes innovative intervention strategies to prevent online sexual violence against children through an offender-focused approach. Protect Children’s specialists analyze child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to support law enforcement agencies in their efforts to identify and save children and remove the material from the internet. Since January 2020, Protect Children’s Specialists have analyzed over 60 000 single images in the global Project Arachnid alliance lead by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. Additionally, Protect Children leads peer support groups for parents of children who have been victims of sexual violence.
Directive 2011/93/EU is a vital and comprehensive piece of legislation, which is efficient in furthering the realization of the rights of the child. Due to the constant development of technology, however, and the impact the changing technology has on the means of offending and types of sexual violence against children, the Directive, like most other pieces of legislation, has its shortcomings. Bearing this in mind, many of the suggested policy options seem effective in strengthening the rights of the child and protecting children from sexual violence. Protect Children finds Option 4 to be the most suitable one. Option 4 successfully combines the need for updated legislation, as well as the need for non-legislative measures supporting the implementation of legislation within the Member States, rendering the legislation more effective and suitable for the present as well as the future.
At the present moment, the Directive falls short in effectively criminalizing all forms of sexual violence against children (existence of opt-out clauses significantly lessening the impact of the Directive). Presently, the Directive allows States Parties to opt out of criminalizing CSAM which does not include a real child (however, bearing in mind the highly realistic nature of computer-generated images of CSAM), as well as CSAM involving an adult portraying a child. New research (Protect Children 2021) demonstrated the strong correlation between viewing CSAM and contact offending, thus highlighting the urgent need to better remove all forms of CSAM, as well as prevent individuals from accessing it. This includes offering appropriate intervention means as per article 22 of the Directive.
Protect Children believes that legislative amendments should be taken to broaden the scope of the Directive to account for technological developments and brought with it the new ways in which crimes of sexual violence can be committed against children. Through legislative amendments, the legislative framework would be more suitable to address the changing nature of crimes of sexual violence. Furthermore, Protect Children strongly supports further harmonization of legislation across the Member States to avoid impunity or perpetrators travelling to States with more lenient legislative frameworks.
As for Dr. Alaric Naudé’s study, I found it here: https://thepublicinsight.org/paper/a-case-study-via-sociolinguistic-analysis-of-covert-pro-paedophilia-organization-registered-as-a-child-protection-charity-and-its-links-to-paedophilia-enablers-in-academia-and-academic-propaganda/
Just by reading it, you can tell that he’s essentially using things that Prostasia and its members have said against them, especially on Twitter or on the forum. It’s little wonder why Prostasia asked for the “study” to be taken down.
Special mention goes to the part about stigma:
- Inverted Victim-Oppressor, Blaming An “Unaccepting” Society
A distinct victim-oppressor linguistic pattern underlies the entire organisational agenda. This attitude is consistent with the findings of Blaloch and Bourke (2020) “The dominance of these justifications suggests self-proclaimed paedophiles in both studies did not consider sexual activity with children to be wrong; rather, they believed it was merely viewed negatively by society.” Prostasia reasons that not all paedophiles have acted on their urge and hence attaching a stigma is wrong. It projects blame onto society for not accepting paedophiles and thus coercing them to offend. This follows the usual projection by paedophiles of responsibility away from themselves toward the victim or society, a pattern that hinders attempts at rehabilitation. Using the same logic from Prostasia, rapists offend because society has applied a stigma to rapists, or that murderers commit murder due to the stigma that society has applied to murderers.
The forum shows numerous examples of how paedophiles view the stigma against them as somehow being unfair or unwarranted, tantamount to a violation of their human rights. One individual proudly explained that “paedophilia” is Greek for “love of children” and that “normal people” did not know the proper definitions of words. Self-justification with a condescending attitude can be seen in comments across the forum.
Figure 9: Conflation of human rights laws with valid stigma against paedophiles (Prostasia Forum)
On the Prostasia forum, as with other platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, Human Rights are conflated with the stigma attached to paedophilia. The paedophilic argument runs; “stigma is a violation of human rights and therefore (the) stigma should be removed”. Arguments of morality are also challenged. The comment above calls for the removal of stipulations in law restricted by morality. The underlying assertion that morality is never objective is incorrect and assumes morality in only a religious context. There are scientific views of morality based on empirical observations. For example, violent pornography precedes dehumanization and sexual aggression (Zhou et al, 2021), therefore legislation designed and based even on a purely moralistic or ethical science foundation would also limit the spread of harmful materials that have negative impacts upon the wider society, whether it be physical or psychological. The argument put forward by paedophiles encapsulates an oxymoron in that it relies on human rights laws which are themselves based on both a form of morality and a value of human life, while at the same time claiming morality does not exist.
Figure 10: Paedophile compares paedophilic suffering with the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust. (Prostasia Forum)
In developing its arguments, paedophilic ideology makes extensive use of false equivalences in an attempt to normalise an otherwise abnormal position. In the above post, a paedophile uses one form of psychological projection that is associated with blame projection, (Hotchkiss, 2003) in addition to an irrational belief they are victims in need of empathy (Sykes, 2003). A false comparison of paedophiles and the plight of Jews in the Third Reich is made by a certain paedophile, Ralph. He states that the “truths” (which is to say any truth that does not support the paedophilic self-notion of truth), is in itself not a truth, equating the study of Jews in Nazi Germany with the study of paedophilia. He identifies a false equivalence of the plight of the Jews who were exterminated for being Jewish with the faux-plight of paedophiles. There has never been a historic or collective genocide or extermination program targeting paedophiles, nor have paedophiles as a group ever experienced the abuses suffered by Jews as a group. Such a comparison is not only a false equivalence but carries, in addition, an anti-Semitic undertone.
Prostasia regularly compares itself with Jews, claiming that being anti-paedophilia is being anti-Semitic because “anti-paedophiles attribute paedophilia with Jews.” This claim sits alongside the claim that criticism of Prostasia is an activity of Far Right and Alt-Right groups (Prostasia, 2021), thus attempting to make an equivalence between critique, political affiliation and ethnic identity. Analysis of available posts criticising Prostasia on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube found a relatively even distribution of critical content from across the political spectrum and, while some comments were from individuals associated with the far-right, an equal number were found from accounts with a far-left ideology. The majority of comments, however, were in the range of centre-left and centre-right with language patterns amongst these groups being almost identical. Prostasia’s stance on social media was only accepted by extreme fringe groups. This attempt at redefining paedophiles is currently unsuccessful but when combined with academic interests may eventually find itself being mainstreamed as a sub-section of “Queer Theory”.
Prostasia does not support paedophiles who are afraid they may be at risk of offending. By Prostasia’s content, they concede they are an advocacy and activist group. Three different occasions have been noted where paedophiles asking for assistance to avoid offending were turned away. Their website states,
>"Prosasia's priority is on using law, technology, and social intervention to prevent CSA before it happens, rather than merely tracking down and punishing those who have already offended - at which point our society has failed the victim. We do this through four actions: Facilitating research - Campaigning for effective laws - Consulting to platforms and agencies - Defending the innocent."
As seen from this text, a part of Prostasia’s victimhood ideology creation lies in activism associated with appealing for favourable laws and appealing those that are unfavourable. The foundation repeatedly advocates either against tracking down paedophiles or punishing them. At the least it advocates sentence reduction. Once again, psychological or guilt projection is used by Prostasia — it is society that has failed the victim, not the paedophile that is responsible for the rape of a child. The semantics of the four “actions” mentioned by Prostasia are of special interest, as is the order which denotes importance. In this case, research is viewed as being of utmost importance and defending the innocent is mentioned yet seems to be an afterthought in its general syntax as per the four actions listed. The semantics of the word innocent here is also vague, and may not refer to children at all but possibly to paedophiles.
There’s a lot more than that, but it’s a bit long so I wasn’t going to quote the whole study.
I think the following quote says it all really:
That de-stigmatisation of paedophilia is a progressive step to a more tolerant society is illogical and contrary to evidence. In reality, de-stigmatisation of paedophilia is regressive and only accepted in a true rape culture and hyper-violent societies.
Which is followed by the study’s conclusions:
- Conclusions
From the findings of this study, a conclusion can be drawn that Prostasia is a pro-Paedophilia organisation that registered as a child protection NGO and that it has links to academics whose work is supportive of paedophiles and paedophilia. Further, it serves to proliferate Child abuse by undermining the work of legitimate child protection services by spreading pro-paedophilia propaganda and erroneous content via social media platforms, as well as its own website. It directly endangers children by putting them into contact with paedophiles via the so-called Map Support Club, as well as normalising paedophilia by promoting it as a legitimate sexual orientation. Prostasia therefore gives insight into the mental processes that paedophiles take in order to justify cultivation of deviant desires, and the classification of semantics, in attempts to destigmatize themselves in society, using methods that are similar to those used in grooming children. This study is just one aspect of publicly available data from which to make a linguistic analysis, however it would benefit from follow-up studies that concentrate on dark web activities.
Definitely no bias in the slightest.
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Thank god, I was worried there for a second.
Seriously though, those figure labels are infuriating.
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Dr. Naudé wants pedophiles (and actual sex offenders) to be killed:
This honestly isn’t surprising after reading his “study”.
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Fuck the fucking woodchipper meme. Anyone who’d unironically support such an execution method has no right to call themselves “civilized”. Not even the worst people on Earth deserve to die in such agony. It’s cruel, unusual, barbaric, savage, and dehumanizing. Fucking freaks…
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From what I’ve heard, the journal that published it is a predatory journal, charging researchers a fee to publish their work with very little review process. That being said, the journal did retract it when it became clear that it was full of misinformation.
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After some digging, I found that a column written by Dr. Naudé was removed from a magazine in early 2021:
Intellectual magazine removes professor’s column critiquing critical race theory
Scholar republishes it on his personal blog: ‘I offer no apology for stating reality’
A lengthy column by a professor that critiques critical race theory and the concept of “whiteness” and “blackness” was removed by an online intellectual magazine after it generated controversy.
Alaric Naudé, a linguistics professor at Suwon Science College in South Korea and head professor of its English Department, said his essay “Blackness, Whiteness and Other Mythological Creatures” was removed by the UK-based online magazine Res Publica.
The publication bills itself as providing “an academic platform where ideas and concepts can be praised and challenged.” It did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking comment on the matter.
Naudé (pictured) said that his piece was published on February 18 and subsequently removed the following day due to complaints. He said the publication issued a public apology for sparking a “controversy.”
Naudé republished the piece on his professor’s blog on February 23 with a lengthy foreward taking on his critics and a note: “I offer no apology for stating reality.”
The scholar’s 2,663-word column argued that racism and ethnic strife is not a recent historical development, but spans human history. He also took on the “whiteness” and “blackness” trends in higher education today:
The concepts of Blackness and whiteness are in themselves deeply racist as well as highly erroneous. Both terms are used to describe individuals’ life experiences based on the tone of skin. This in turn becomes highly problematic because skin tone is a poor predicate of personal views, ethics, worldview, religious belief and of course personality. Both terms also erroneously assume the homogeneity of a very large groups of people based purely on the content of melanin or lack thereof. Simply considering some of the basic facts concerning the ethnic makeup of people with different skin tones shows exactly how crude if not laughable the concepts of Blackness and Whiteness really are, both in practice and as a theory to understand social phenomenon.
And while he does not mention it specifically by name, he argued that critical race theory is a big grift:
Firstly, racialization and concepts of race are easily accessible methods for creating support as they draw on historical injustices. Secondly, these factors also serve to create considerable financial benefits for academics who keep this concept alive. The most vocal academic proponents of this highly racialized worldview are individuals who stand the most to gain via the financial incentives such as research sponsorship or publication of their books which are bought by those who feel disenfranchised and who may have genuinely suffered or by those who wish to help. Such manipulation can rightly [be] reviewed as having a predatory aspect because it capitalizes on the suffering of others.
Naudé’s blog includes a number of his personal musings on controversial topics today, including diversity training and modern language wars.
And on his YouTube Channel, ThePonderingProfessor, he has posted videos that question diversity initiatives and academic propaganda.
Naudé, who grew up in Australia and South Africa, told The College Fix his videos aim to serve as an open forum “for thoughts which seem to be taboo in academia.”
He said he is disappointed his column was removed from Res Publica but defended the editor as a “very pleasant person and I feel sorry that she was put in this position.”
“Higher powers, which is to say stakeholders, made the decision,” he said.
He also said he has never had any affiliation with nor supported any political group, that he is politically neutral and that his piece was written solely in support of free speech and ethics.
“Within academia there are orthodoxies that have developed but these are sometimes based on less than positive grounds,” he told The Fix.
“… I felt I needed to write the article because the division of people into arbitrary groups is a recipe for creating division and not bringing people together. I firmly believe that we should see people as people, first and foremost.”
… Unless they’re pedophiles or actual sex offenders, right professor?
Also, I went onto Dr. Naudé’s blog site and he wrote this about Prostasia, when his article on the foundation was removed: https://www.naude.eu/prostasia.html
Dealing with Prostasia- Cancelled Again
So, I was cancelled again, which seems like a reoccurring theme every time I try to publish something in the United Kingdom, or anything that points to failures in academia. My paper concerning the problematic nature of Prostasia was published by the British Journal of Philosophy, Sociology and History after peer review, but was removed the next day after Prostasia threatened the Journal. Not only does this behaviour ironically, prove my findings but has amplified the issue via the Streisand Effect after being covered by Reduxx and the Post Millennial.
I have since found another Journal that has a spine (pun intended) and republished the paper which is free for everyone to read.
I recommend this paper not just as a debunking of any validity on the part of Prostasia but even more so to equip the public with knowledge of how paedophiles hide behind pseudo-academic jargon in order to justify their debased ideas.
Academia unfortunately has a long history of either turning a blind eye or outright endorsing paedophilic deviancy via an international network of organisations and individuals spanning decades.
A NOTE TO PARENTS: Data on Prostasia members have identified individuals working in a number of fields including social welfare and education even including librarians, some of whom have or have had access to very young children. Members were profiled to come from a very wide array of countries including, the USA, the UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Russia, and Spain among others. I urge all parents to know who has contact with their children, especially who their teachers and coaches are. Parents you are the first and often the only line of defence.
I recommend that since this is heavy reading, that it may not be easy for those who have suffered from abuse as children to read, hence reader discretion is advised. Some minor changes have been made from the original which I will leave up for cross comparison if desired.
There’s something else that I would like to mention.
From looking at these Tweets, the professor might be one too (which would explain Reduxx’s article):
Also, I realized that there’s a thread that covered Dr. Naudé’s “study” on the forum:
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Ah, so he’s a hypocrite on top of everything else. There’s the cherry on top! Fucking beautiful.
The sad thing is, I don’t disagree with his views on race. Take it from a mixed-race guy, people don’t all fit neatly into arbitrary boxes, and I want to be seen as a legitimate human being before being disregarded as a “mixed-race abomination”.
Too bad he can’t extend this same principle to pedophiles, many of whom struggle with sexuality and identity issues on account of their paraphilia. Doc needs to fucking practice what he fucking preaches.
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He does know Prostasia has made numerous statemets that say “We don’t support adult-child sex in any form whatsoever” right? I mean does he mention that in his study at all?
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He got his defamatory paper re-published in The Public Insight?
I have a hard time taking this seriously, honestly. This…individual is so wrong on so many levels, it makes perfect sense as to why he’s confined to the back-alley, bare-minimum, ‘bargain-bin’ area of social sciences, and I’m thankful that Naude will never be regarded as a credible voice in the academic arena. He has offered nothing of value, and his words alone demonstrate incredulity.
Prostasia has dealt with this type of defamatory rhetoric before.
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That grifter Shoe0nHead…
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Thing is: from his perspective, he does.
Saying things like “we should see people as people” sounds great at first, until you realize that it always gives you the option to exclude arbitrary groups by defining them as not people. And that’s what he does. He does not see us as people or as human beings. Even more so, he sees us as fundamentally dangerous and a threat to “legitimate” people. That means that stigmatizing and insulting us, discriminating against us and even calling for us to be tortured and killed does, from his point of view, not only not contradict supposedly humane and inclusive views, they even require it – by protecting “legitimate” human beings from those monsters who would endanger them.
It’s always the same pattern that you can find throughout history. First of all, you have to dehumanize those you want to discriminate against. Then you can vote for every thinkable atrocity against that group to be committed and still think of yourself as kind, empathetic and compassionate.
And of course, when people did that in the past (like Nazis, slave traders or homophobes) they were horribly wrong, but this time you definitely got it right – because after all the people you discriminate against really are inhuman monsters, and how dare you even compare that to the awful struggles of human beings who actually deserve compassion?
There is a great quote by Neil Gaimann describing this process:
Look—here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers—many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests.
Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.
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Hit the nail on the head. As for myself, it doesn’t matter how much we hate somebody or how dangerous they are: we have no right whatsoever to dehumanize them. Even when they truly do arguably “deserve it”.
6ix9ine, Albert Fish, Andrei Chikatilo, Danny Heinrich, David Berg, Fred West, Gary Glitter, Ian Brady, Jared Fogle, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jeffrey Epstein, Jimmy Savile, John Wayne Gacy, Joseph McCann, Joseph Stalin (he impregnated a 14yo at age 35), Larry Nassar, Leonard Lake, Luis Garavito, Matthew Falder, Mr Cruel, Ottis Toole, Pedro López, Peter Scully, R. Kelly, Richard Ramirez, Rodney Alcala, Roman Polanski, Rose West, Roy Whiting, Ted Bundy, Tsutomu Miyazaki, Victor Salva, William Bonin, etc.
All of these people are the absolute worst: rapists, murderers, etc. But they aren’t monsters separate from the rest of us: they too are homo sapiens, human to a fault. Greed, hate, violence. Under the correct circumstances, anyone could wind up like them. All the German soldiers who committed the Holocaust were normal people indoctrinated into seeing others as “less human”; the Americans who owned slaves and whipped them were merely products of their time, a time that viewed their human stock as “farm equipment” rather than people, etc.
We LOVE to say such “monsters” no longer count as people, but I’d instead argue they represent part of precisely what it means to be human, to be tribal and selfish. They just take it WAY too far and commit atrocities that the uninitiated couldn’t fathom, let alone stomach. Ah well, watch my words be taken out of context to make it seem like I’m justifying such behavior. Reality is that I’d rather we rise above any petty emotions of jealousy and vengeance to become something better. Sadly, I don’t see this happening anytime soon…
And for anybody thinking we should be “soft” on legitimate predators: no, they did wrong and must be held accountable for the crimes committed. But shit like the woodchipper meme is fucking unacceptable. Make no mistake, I’m far from a pacifist; violence is sometimes justified, but only when absolutely necessary (like in self-defense or when fighting a war) and it should never be more than what is required: if somebody must die, kill them quickly and humanely. Torture (like the woodchipper) is for savages. Even then, I’d prefer we not kill people at all. Still doesn’t mean just letting criminals go, y’know? Prevention and rehabilitation first, life imprisonment as a last resort, to Hell with the death penalty.
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Is it true you are working on a rebuttal?